Thankful

Two days ago I heard some tragic news that made me stop and be thankful for my own situation. Someone I know had a niece who gave birth this week to a baby that died due to strangulation by it's own umbilical cord during delivery.

This was horrible to hear, particularly since Kate, when born, had her umbilical cord wrapped and knotted around her own neck. I remember the doctor saying he had never seen anything like it and him likening it to a sailor's knot of some sort.

You see, it all started with impatience...mine. Being as big as a house and chasing around a toddler in the dog days of summer was just about more than I could handle, never mind that Kate was taking her sweet time arriving. After her due date came and went, I think it was around the 1 week mark after it I started pleading with my OB to induce labor and get her out of me.

He agreed and we scheduled an induction for Sept. 15, 1.5 weeks after her due date. We checked into the hospital the night before and I was given Ambien (sleeping pill) by the nurses so I would be rested and ready for labor inducing in the morning.

Around 4:15am I remember being roused from sleep by what I thought was labor. I woke Paul up and told him the baby was coming and to call the nurse. Two nurses came in and told me it wasn't time yet and to go back to sleep. I tried to, but the contractions were too strong.

I then made Paul get the nurses back in to check me about 15 minutes later. I remember the nurse was grumbling to herself that she was busy and I wasn't ready, but agreed to check my cervix. It was then that she lifted the sheet and yelled to me "Whatever you do, don't push yet! I've got to get the doctor!" She then hurried out of the room.

Frantic and dazed from the sleeping pill, I looked to Paul trying to figure out what was going on. He then checked under the sheet and screamed out "I see the baby's head! Where is the doctor?" I then looked to the door of our room just in time to see the doctor stumbling in putting his shoes/booties on. He hurriedly sat down on a stool and pulled up to my "area" just in time to coach me to push, the baby was in fact, as I had told them, "coming". (Why doesn't anyone EVER listen to the mother in situations like these???)

After the normal birthing process occurred, Katherine Elizabeth (Kate) arrived into this world and we received the standard "It's a girl!" (which we knew) and I waited for her to be placed on my chest so I could meet her. I guess I got caught up into hearing the nurses talk about her amazing strawberry blond hair, (me thinking she must be blond like her daddy but it was tinted with blood or some fluid) but, as the minutes ticked by, I became worried. As soon as I began to speak up, she was given to me and we were told of how lucky we all were. She did have her own umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and it had become tied, so had she waited until we had scheduled her for delivery, she may not have made it. The doctor also went on about the oddness of the type of knot it resembled and how unique that was. But, honestly, I guess I thought death in childbirth was a thing of long ago historical novels and surely it wouldn't have happened in the new high-tech hospital we were in, so I just shrugged him off thinking she was never in any REAL danger.

Now, two and a half years later, as I heard the awful story of my friend's niece's loss, I was reminded of how lucky we are to and how thankful I am that Kate is with us today, happy and healthy!